Solidarity and Politeness

Tu and Vous

According to Brown and Gilman (1960), Tu and Vous began as a genuine difference of singular and plural. The distinction is that grammatically there is a singular you (T) and a plural you (V) but usage requires that you use vous with the individuals or certain occasions. In a book entitled savoire-vivre en France, it is said that Tu should be use between spouse, close relatives, or the people working or living closely together, while Vous should be used with strangers, to those who have no ties of any kinds, between inferior and superior.

Since there is no precise rule for shifting from vous to tu, it is best to wait until the other person uses it to address you before you use it to address him or her. If you cannot judge who has ‘power’ or which proper conditions to use tu or vous, it is better to use politeness and wait until the other use ‘solidarity’. 

Address Terms

Address by title alone is the least intimate form of address in that title usually designates ranks or occupations as in colonel, doctor, or waiter. Some language employ the kinship terms to use address terms. One of the other peculiarity systems of naming and addressing is giving a name to and address to the non-human like pets. there is an interesting terms said by Robinson about the address terms. He argues that a society in which a person’s status derives from the achievements, a few distinctions is made. 

Politeness

In using a language, we use a device that the language employ to show certain relationship to other. We must use the language properly. We can demonstrate our feelings to other and our awareness of social controls. Such awareness is also shown through a general politeness in the use of language. It does not mean that we must always be polite. Oppositely, impoliteness may happen depends on the existence of standard or norms of politeness. Some languages have a complex rules of politeness, for instance, Javanese, one of the important language in Indonesia, is a language in which it is nearly impossible to say anything without indicating the social relationship between the speaker and the listener in terms of status and familiarity.